Seems like someone tried to break into my house sometime between Thursday and Today. Not 100% sure when, just noticed it today.

Came home Thursday and there were a set of tire tracks in my driveway in a place that we usually don't drive or park. Thought it was a little strange, but it's been known to happen. And then there was a set of shoe prints in the sand up to the deck, and back around the other side of the house. Again not completely strange, delivery men, meter readers, etc.

Then today I noticed on my front door, there were pry marks around the door jam and frame near the door knob and up by the dead bolt.

Unfortunately the police office is not open during the weekend, so I couldn't report anything right away. And I'm going out of the country on Monday, so I have to have a family member do the reporting. I don't live alone, so luckily my house isn't going to be unoccupied for 2 weeks. Definitely wouldn't feel safe doing that knowing that someone recently tried to break in and is probably still roaming the neighborhood.

I've lived here since 1994 and never had an issue with someone trying to break into my house.

They clearly failed once already, they'd have to be some really stupid thieves to go back.

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Theophany wrote:YOU'RE AN ELITIST @#%^ AETHIEN, NO WONDER YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS AND PEOPLE HATE YOU. someproteinguy wrote:Aethien you take more terrible pictures than a Japanese tourist. Astarin wrote:One day, Maz, you'll learn not to click on anything Aeth links.

Do not bother with a monitored security system. The average response time, unless there is a known danger to someone (IE restraining orders and such), is normally 30 minutes to an hour. And that's if you are lucky. Plus there are times they will not even attend, and will still bill for wasting time.

Guard services are equally useless. Go to Logitech, they have a camera system you can setup. That will be infinitely more effective. Or just buy webcams and set them up on cheap notebooks. Anything is better than a real alarm system. Trust me.

Do not bother with a monitored security system. The average response time, unless there is a known danger to someone (IE restraining orders and such), is normally 30 minutes to an hour. And that's if you are lucky. Plus there are times they will not even attend, and will still bill for wasting time.

Guard services are equally useless. Go to Logitech, they have a camera system you can setup. That will be infinitely more effective. Or just buy webcams and set them up on cheap notebooks. Anything is better than a real alarm system. Trust me.

I agree. DIY is always better. It makes a ton of sense to use cameras around your house, connected to laptops that the burglars couldn't possibly take with them.

You could just leave the doors unlocked and let peeps take what they want.

Do you happen to need a new TV? Or a new computer?

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Theophany wrote:YOU'RE AN ELITIST @#%^ AETHIEN, NO WONDER YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS AND PEOPLE HATE YOU. someproteinguy wrote:Aethien you take more terrible pictures than a Japanese tourist. Astarin wrote:One day, Maz, you'll learn not to click on anything Aeth links.

Do not bother with a monitored security system. The average response time, unless there is a known danger to someone (IE restraining orders and such), is normally 30 minutes to an hour. And that's if you are lucky. Plus there are times they will not even attend, and will still bill for wasting time.

Guard services are equally useless. Go to Logitech, they have a camera system you can setup. That will be infinitely more effective. Or just buy webcams and set them up on cheap notebooks. Anything is better than a real alarm system. Trust me.

I agree. DIY is always better. It makes a ton of sense to use cameras around your house, connected to laptops that the burglars couldn't possibly take with them.

Hence why you have it recording to someplace else, and use Logitech's cloud system to store said video.

LERN2INTERNET dumbass :D

By the by, all a wired alarm system does is notify you that someone just stole your stuff, nothing else. Meanwhile, if you lo-jacked the computer, you'd likely have a better chance of finding them by tracking down its signal.

But yea, DIY is sooo much less useful than a noisemaker with a phone line or cellphone attached.

Edit:

Or even have it record to a network hard drive connected and locked down, or "nailed down" even in some other area of your home, if you don't want to pay for cloud storage. Then at least you have pictures of the thieves and can actually have a chance they might get caught! Not that it will save any of your stuff...

Edit #2:

Please keep in mind I work for an alarm company. I know they are garbage. They don't even save you money. They lower your insurance, but the companies keep their rates up so that you effectively wind up paying the same anyway.

I'm thinking of just getting one of those trail cams and link it to my iphone to grab images. Guys at work have them setup around their hunting areas to catch glimpses of what deer frequent their hunting grounds. There are a couple tall maple trees in my yard, it wouldn't be hard to point one at my door.

That way even if it doesn't stop them, I'll have a better chance at knowing who did it.

I'm thinking right now it was just some stupid kid. School just started up, so kids are moving around in the early afternoon when I'm at work. Mostly thinking this because if it were really someone trying to break in, I don't think they would have stopped just cause the door was locked. And it is not exactly a visible area, so they could have taken their time and broke in.

If you set up a camera, test the image quality to see if you can spot a face. Make sure there's plenty of light so that you can view a face even at night. Another thing is that you could setup either a wi-fi cam (they have some nice kits these days) that can record to a server, a network drive or a PC. That way you could point it at an entrance and ensure you leave a light on to get a good face shot.

It's not that I'm right and that you're wrong. It's that you gave half information and set yourself up to looking like an idiot.

All camera systems are useless unless you have it focused properly on entry points or have someone manning the camera. It's rare to get a good enough view of someone to have it actually clear enough to press charges against anyone.

It's not that I'm right and that you're wrong. It's that you gave half information and set yourself up to looking like an idiot.

All camera systems are useless unless you have it focused properly on entry points or have someone manning the camera. It's rare to get a good enough view of someone to have it actually clear enough to press charges against anyone.

Given that it was just a general information post, not a step-by-step how-to (mainly because I had no idea whether or not he had time or was willing to pay for additional equipment), I figured that if he had more questions, he'd ask. Also, it's not really that hard, it's just that camera quality was relatively sh*t. With the abundance of webcams and phones with cameras, prices are falling quite nicely, and you can get a really high quality webcam for about $100 bucks. That same tech can be incorporated into a device for a bit more that doesn't rely on a PC.

As for getting a good image, that's why you test it under the worst conditions (low light, fast movement), and see how to compensate (adding lights, repositioning). The reason it's rare to get usable footage is because people buy poor quality cameras (see any gas bar camera), aim them once and never test or adjust them, or do anything to really work with them.

As I stated, I work for an alarm company. I've seen well-adjusted, well-positioned cameras and they are clear as day. We have an entire national account that uses some fairly standard cameras (about $150-$300 a unit) that are perfectly clear and full colour. I'd share at least one humourous one (we have several, it's a chain of convenient stores, which gets some interesting people in there, including one that walked in wearing just a sock, and a couple that were looking for some "private time"), but I'd wager that'd cost me my job.

I get what you were trying to do, make some lulz, but then you just come off like an ***, so, there's that.